beyond mobile: state of digital commerce 2017 - episerver · episerver state of digital commerce...
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Page 1State of digital commerceEpiserver
Since 2012, we at Episerver have been monitoring the state of mobile
commerce in an annual report, creating an industry benchmark of
how mobile devices are impacting the retail shopping experience for
both consumers and high street brands.
Over the last four years, we’ve been tracking these developments
closely as the adoption of smartphones and tablets has exploded,
with 90% of consumers now owning a smartphone and 70% owning
a tablet.
As these devices have become ubiquitous, the vast majority
of retailers are now successfully incorporating them into their
commercial efforts, taking either a mobile first or truly omnichannel
approach to both marketing and retail.
Given the success of retailers’ mobile commerce strategies, this
year we’ve extended our annual State of Mobile Commerce report,
taking stock of current approaches but also looking ahead to the
technologies and processes that are set to disrupt retail Beyond
Mobile.
This year, we’ve included all aspects of the retail and commerce
environment, encompassing original research from 1,200 UK
consumers, 100 professional marketers and 100 brands across five
key sectors.
By combining these perspectives, Episerver has developed a full
360-degree view of the retail landscape, one that considers the
existing state of digital commerce and makes informed predictions
for the future.
Page 2State of digital commerceEpiserver
Where are we now?The state of mobile adoption
Intents and preferences
As 2016 comes to a close, it’s clear that the age of mobile
commerce is well and truly in swing. As it stands, over 90% of
adults have a smartphone, while 70% now own a tablet.
From a retail perspective, shopping continues to feature in
the top five uses for a smartphone, with 65% of consumers
using their phone to order food or purchase non-essential
items. More than one in five do this on a weekly basis.
This adoption has been recognised throughout the marketing
community, with 96% of marketers now incorporating mobile
into their approach and 77% agreeing that mobile has
become an “important touchpoint” for their brands.
Having conquered the mobile market, retailers are now
looking forward to the new trends and technologies that are
set to define shopping in 2017…
Most popular activities carried out on smartphones
and tablets are:
1. Social networking
2. Looking up directions
3. Communicating with friends/family
4. Online banking
5. Shopping
96% of marketers incorporating mobile into their approach:
Page 3State of digital commerceEpiserver
Seven digital commerce trends for 2017
01. Is the app boom over?
Back in 2015, every retail-focused business was expected to
have a mobile app, regardless of whether it fitted with the
organisation’s commercial strategy. As we move into 2017,
this approach is changing, with more retailers now opting for
optimised mobile sites instead of individual applications.
A third (33%) of the marketers surveyed confirm they
incorporate mobile apps into their campaigns, while 56% rely
instead on responsive mobile sites; this makes mobile sites
the third most popular marketing channel, behind desktop
websites and email.
A review of the top 100 UK commerce sites reinforces this
trend, revealing that while 98% provide mobile-friendly
commerce online, only 64% have an iPhone app.
This switch to in-browser experiences is being driven by the
surge of mobile search (now eclipsed desktop) and Google
AMP, helping site owners create ‘light weight’ webpages
and providing users with a much faster mobile browsing
experience. As such, the idea of manually installing an app,
which takes up room on a device, seems like an unnecessary
hassle.
Recommendation for retailers
□ Mobile web audiences are 2x larger than those
accessing apps (Comscore). Hence the mobile
web has a larger addressable audiences in
terms of reach
□ AMP-powered sites boost mobile site speed,
which is a key factor in mobile SEO ranking. eBay
deployed AMP to over 8 million pages in 2016
□ Consumer are highly selective about apps.
Consider how to get enough downloads and
keep engagements up when you incorporate a
mobile application
Percentage of the top UK retailers don’t have a smartphone appfor either iPhone or Android
Percentage of marketers do not include mobile apps within their campaigns
32%
66%
Page 4State of digital commerceEpiserver
02. The death of mobile redirects
As retailers move from apps to mobile sites, the demand for
seamless user experiences will help to shift businesses away
from traditional mobile redirects towards genuinely fluid,
cross-platform experiences.
While Google has long championed the SEO benefits of
responsive design over specialist mobile sites, it’s surprising
just how many retailers still opt for a mobile redirect.
Despite 98 of the 100 commerce sites in our benchmark being
mobile friendly, one in five still relies on mobile redirects
rather than truly responsive designs. As we move into 2017,
the sheer variety of products, devices and screen sizes in
use makes it ever-more difficult to build an effective mobile
re-direct that does not limit usability, or disrupt the customer
experience on certain platforms. It is for this reason that we
expect to see near-complete adoption of responsive design
within the next 12 months.
Recommendations
□ Avoid mobile re-directs in favour of genuinely responsive design for better search ranking and save money from
maintaining multiple sites
□ Responsive design necessitates one solution to manage and personalise user experiences across multiple channels,
and by opting for a single platform will help to ensure seamless branding and a consistent user experience.
% of top retail brands still rely on mobile redirectsrather than responsive designs
% of marketers are incorporating responsive sitesinto their campaigns
20%
56%
Page 5State of digital commerceEpiserver
03. Evolution of experience-driven ecommerce
Now that mobile devices have reached near saturation
within the consumer space, brands are looking for new
ways to engage mobile users, both in store and online.
One in five consumers say they would like to see Augment
Reality (AR) or Virtual Reality (VR) built into their shopping
experiences, with the ability to try on clothes without the
hassle of shopping in-store appealing to the majority.
Unfortunately, as it stands only 9% of marketers have
incorporated VR into their campaigns, while even fewer
are using AR.
In their current state, both AR and VR remain gimmicks
for retail. But is there really anything wrong with that?
The tipping point for adoption of these tools is not only
in making them genuinely useful contextually, but also
in making them a fun and immersive experience for
customers. This is where QR codes and NFC fell down –
they were too functional.
High street shopping is all about immersing the customer
in a brand experience that excites and engages. If this
doesn’t happen, they’ll simply shop next door – or move
their purchasing online.
Recommendations
□ Bring fun to the mobile experience, but
incorporate in-store technologies sparingly as
part of a broader marketing strategy or vision
□ Use VR and AR to build immersive experiences
that drives contextual product engagement.
In the last 12 months, less than 5% of consumersscanned a QR Code or engaged with an NFC display
What shopping technology would you like to see introduced?
One click ordering
Mobile app to scan and skip queues
One-hour delivery
Ability to try clothes in VR
18,2
18,5
18,8
32,5
0 10 15 20 25 30 35
Page 6State of digital commerceEpiserver
04. In-store comes in-house
During the early years of ecommerce, consumers shopped
online for novelty and convenience. As mobile technology
evolved, aspects of the online shopping experience moved in-
store (loyalty cards, price matches, click and collect). Today
we’re witnessing yet another shift, with new technology taking
us back in the direction of purely shopping online.
Despite all the talk of the “mobile consumer”, in reality 66% of
UK adults do most of their mobile browsing at home – a figure
that jumps to 75% for tablet users. Last year, only 20% of
consumers used their mobiles while out shopping, while less
than one in 10 used a tablet on the high street.
More and more consumers are looking for retail experiences
that allow them to shop exclusively from home. When asked
which technologies they were most looking forward to in 2017,
a third of consumers said one-hour home delivery services.
Furthermore, one in five wanted the ability to try on clothes
from home using virtual reality, while 18% said they wanted
one-click ordering from home. As many as 15% were also
keen to download and 3D print their own products.
16% of consumers would like to receive homedelivery by drone
Recommendations
□ Use engaging content like editorial and videos
to drive product engagement, and incorporate
in-store crossover technologies and click-
and-collect options to drive online customers
in-store
□ Intuitive search and one-click purchasing can
provide great opportunities to streamline your
web experience. Drive customer purchases
through the ease of shopping online.
Where people browse a mobile device
On the high street
At home
21,6%
66,2%
In the office
In public transport
20,9%
29,3%
Page 7State of digital commerceEpiserver
05. Data will drive decisions for retailersand customers
From audience profiling and personalisation to customer
journey optimisation, most brands are already using data to
drive a significant proportion of their sales, marketing and
retail approaches.
But as it stands, 62% of marketers are not incorporating
personalisation into their ecommerce sales cycle, and
despite 70% of companies use email marketing, only
28% are using triggered emails to re-engage back non-
converting customers. Nearly one in five marketers have even
incorporated virtual assistants like live chat into their retail
sites, relying almost entirely on data-driven algorithms to
communicate with customers.
Where this will change in 2017, is in the way data will be used
to automate customer interaction with predicative analytics.
Marketers and merchandisers have for too long been
failed by rules-based personalisation which is ultimately
unmanageable and not scalable. With new technologies
in machine learning, it is possible to combine assisted
segmentation and contextual data collected from
customer interactions to autonomously deliver true 1-to-1
individualisation online and in-store.
Despite the abundance of data now available, 46% of marketers
think that they can’t create an omnichannel approach because
of a lack of insights into customer journeys.
Only 38% of marketers incorporate personalisation currently into their marketing approach
Recommendation
□ Think beyond customer segments. Leverage
machine learning algorithms to combine data
and context to serve up content and product
recommendations automatically base on
omnichannel customer intent to increase
conversion
□ Leverage triggered emails to recover lost sales
or identify products viewed but not basketed.
Automatically send emails with an additional
offer or personalised product alternatives to
further encourage a purchase.
Page 8State of digital commerceEpiserver
06. Loyalty beats choice, but convenience beats loyalty
With the rise of the Internet of Things, along with smart
ordering services such as Amazon Dash, 18% of consumers
now say that they would like to rely on simple one-click
ordering rather than shopping in store. 17% would even go
as far as to rely on autonomous products that could restock
automatically.
This could drastically reduce the opportunity for businesses
to gain customers from their competitors. Instead of making
buying decisions based on marketing, promotions or deals,
consumers may soon circumvent the online retail process
altogether, opting instead for existing brands based on
nothing more than the click of a button. But there is one thing
that will overcome such a mentality – customer convenience.
When asked what triggers a purchase, 37% of consumers
flagged “speed and convenience” as a key factor. Similarly,
43% will leave a site if it’s slow to load – even if it’s one of their
favourite brands. Even more concerning from a brand loyalty
perspective is that 27% will abandon their purchase to go and
try a competitor.
Rather than trying to take on brands in an increasingly
monopolistic space, the best way for competitors to fight
back against the repeat-purchase mentality will simply be
to offer a greater degree of purchasing convenience with
superior experience across the commerce journey from
search to checkout.
Given this focus on convenience over brand loyalty, today’s
retailers get only one chance to impress their customers.
Either they maximise this chance through valuable
experiences, or customers will go elsewhere.
93% of consumers won’t contact customer service if a site
is slow to load. While slightly higher for their favourite brands
(91%) the truth is that loyalty is dead in the era of customer
experience.
Recommendations
□ Use smart tagging tools to create long tail
landing pages rather than chasing often
expensive, and generic product ranking with low
conversion on search engine
□ Optimise your on-site search function to help
customer find what they’re looking for quicker
□ Remove any barriers to purchase at both
the checkout and across the sales cycle,
incorporate live chat to solve any immediate
customer issue that disrupt the buying journey
□ Enable click and collect services to ensure
maximum in-store integration and consider
offering automatic re-ordering function to
encourage repeated purchase.
Page 9State of digital commerceEpiserver
07. Marketing will (finally) own the digital experience
For years, retailers have battled the Marketing-IT disconnect,
with CMOs and CIOs vying over who is best suited to run and
manage a brand’s presence online. From the marketer’s
perspective, the website is a customer point of contact, while
for the IT department it represents yet another tool to be
managed.
Due to this disconnect, almost half (49%) of marketers have
to contact the IT department every week in order to achieve
basic marketing tasks such as changing content on their
website. One in five marketers also claim that “working with
other departments” is holding back their ability to drive
change.
As cloud-based content and digital experience management
tools become more intuitive, and intelligent automation grows
more widespread, there is no reason why marketers cannot
take full ownership of these websites themselves. We predict
that in 2017 this disconnect will finally be overcome, with
marketers and CMOs taking full ownership of their brands’
retail sites and lead collaboration with other departments.
Recommendations
□ Focus on usability rather than feature in your next platform selection. Marketers and merchandiser need to be able
to drive the digital experience such as landing page creation and campaign optimisation without relying on IT
□ Go cloud for faster time to market. Cloud based infrastructure means automatic updates, so marketers can keep
up with new developments in their platforms as and when they are released without long waiting time.
% of marketers have to contact the ITdepartment every week
% of marketers believe that working with other departments is holding them back
49%
20%
About Episerver
Episerver is a leading provider of digital marketing, content management and digital
commerce solutions across the retail sector. Our client examples include Pizza Hut
Restaurants, De’longhi Group, Cath Kidston, Intersport and Reebok.
To find out how your organisation fares against 200 leading retailers, download our free
missed revenues opportunities report episerver.com/ecommerce-platform/
For more information, visit Episerver.com.